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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28429407">I heard it on the news</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/giurochedadomani/pseuds/giurochedadomani'>giurochedadomani</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Born for greatness [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Trust (TV 2018)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angry Sex, Angst, Bastard meets bastard, Blatant abuse of em dashes, Happy Ending, I’d say, M/M, Primo gets away with murder (literally) because no one bothers to /look/, Questionable Journalistic Methods, Questionable Mob’s everything, So it’s mostly, but Primo is Not Great with Feelings, sex with feelings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 03:40:31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,536</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28429407</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/giurochedadomani/pseuds/giurochedadomani</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Leonardo betrays Primo (or so the story gets told). </p><p>This is a recollection of the fall of Calabria’s most dangerous mobster.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Leonardo/Primo Nizzuto</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Born for greatness [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2119017</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>41</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>I heard it on the news</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span class="u"> <strong>MAFIA’S ACCOUNTANT TRIAL SET TO START NEXT WEEK</strong> </span>
</p><p> </p><p>Money laundering, extortion and murder: the case that has shaken Gioia Tauro to its core is set to be tried starting next Monday</p><p> </p><p>GIOIA TAURO, 6, June (Andrea Rizzi).- Leonardo Gentile will be judged starting next Monday in the Court of Palmi, where he will face charges of money laundering, extortion and the murder of Alessandro Romano, the eldest son of Incudine’s executive director, Lorenzo Romano.</p><p> </p><p>Gentile, Siluro’s chief accountant up until his indictment, is suspected to have been the mastermind behind the young businessman’s assassination, in a botched attempt to get a hold of a public construction contract through which he was allegedly planning to siphon funds. Edoardo Bambrilla, the city’s prosecutor, believes that Gentile didn’t only search to enrich himself in the process, but to amp up his status in criminal circles. He defends that Gentile’s involved with the ‘Ndrangheta.</p><p>Primo Nizzuto, Siluro’s founder and executive director, says— </p>
<hr/><p>“I don’t need you to read my words back to me”. </p><p> </p><p>Andrea stops mid-sentence. Nizzuto’s draped over his chair, at his office, with a regality more apt of a nobel than a businessman, posture attentively posed, like a model, or a stage actor. Andrea folds the article, slowly. </p><p> </p><p>“You said that you wanted me to tell you, clearly, what I expected from this conversation”. He makes an all encompassing motion with the folded newspaper page in his hand: “<em> This </em> is not what I’m searching for”. </p><p> </p><p>Nizzuto takes a drag from his cigarette, shrugs a little: “I have no further comment to make”. </p><p> </p><p>“Well, it’s not as if you’ve made any kind of comment, if we’re being technical about it”. Andrea turns the folded page, searches the correct paragraph: “Something, something about respecting the judiciary process, a vague mention of the corruptive power of money...”, he makes a face. “We’re talking about a scandal that could run your company to the ground”, he insists. </p><p> </p><p>Nizzuto doesn’t take the bait. He stares at him with dead eyes, answers with carefully calculated boredom: “As I said, I have no further comment to make”. </p><p> </p><p>Andrea has faced bold lying politicians, greedy policemen and lustful entrepreneurs alike during his career. He’s past used to identify the five stages of grief in any given meltdown of a public figure, from the ridiculously constructed excuses and explanations intended to explain away the scandal to the ridiculously formulated begs and threats to get him not to publish a text. And then there’s Primo Nizzuto, who stares at him like a tiger being woken up from a nap by a specially bothersome fly.  </p><p> </p><p>“I’ve been told Gentile cut a deal”, and oh, that does pick up Nizzuto’s attention, does light a fire behind his blank façade. “Nothing surprising, really. It’s a card the inspector plays often. But the thing is”, he searches for the proper way to inflict damage, “a source has told me that the Police has stopped, more or less at the same time, all lines of the investigation leading to you”, he makes a vague gesture in Nizzuto’s general direction, takes on how tense his posture is getting and decides to continue proding, salting the wound. “I cannot help but think that both things are related. And that’s the thing, really, everyone’s going with the betrayal narrative, but that doesn’t make sense. This doesn’t say <em> betrayal </em> to me, this says <em> protection </em> ”, he pretends to revise his notebook. “Which I suppose brings me back to my first question, meaning, how do you feel, <em> signore </em>Nizzuto, about your chief accountant being tried starting next week”. </p><p> </p><p>A moment passes, and then another. Seconds extend themselves, filling the room with tension. Nizzuto looks kind of sick, which is about two shades more serious than any other face Andrea has seen him make in the past hour, but nothing close to what he would have expected from a guy who’s just been told his— right hand? Confidante? <em> Lover </em> , as he suspects? is <em> sacrificing </em> himself for his sake. </p><p> </p><p>Andrea’s vaguely wondering if he’s got enough tape left in the recorder for the rest of the interview if Nizzuto’s taking so long to get his bearings back when the man himself stops the machine. </p><p> </p><p>“So you have, what, a half informed quote you cannot put a name on and, ah, <em> a theory </em>”, he sums up, voice as derisive as it gets. He lights out the cigarette, almost stabbing with it the full ashtray at a corner of the table. “And you expect me to fill in, whatever the hell you’ve got in your head that the rest is”. </p><p> </p><p>It doesn’t sit well on Andrea’s stomach. He has been working on this thing for months.</p><p> </p><p>“Look, if what I was searching for was a salacious quote, I’d began with when did you two started to fuck—”. </p><p> </p><p>Nizzuto fixes him with an icy glare, and maybe he’s gone there <em> too quickly. </em> </p><p> </p><p>“—But I’m not! I’m not”, Andrea insists, placating, hands again open when Nizzuto stands up,  most likely to quick him out. The guy’s got a solid presence that screams <em> murder </em> , Andrea can widly understand how he has ditched competitors left and right until becoming Calabria’s little well known glittering new business star. “Trust me, I couldn’t care less!”. It’s true that he finds hilarious that Nizzuto looks <em> so </em> offended at the idea that he’s been fucking his accountant, as if him being queer is supposed to be a secret instead of part of his business card. It’s frustrating, though, that Nizzuto’s so concerned with his, what? Reputation? That he prefers to ditch his… lover, yes, he supposes, given his reaction, before listening to Andrea. “I’m just— Look, I’m searching for a bigger fish here, and for what I understand, and for what my sources tell me, <em> you </em>are the missing piece that could lead me to him”. </p><p> </p><p>Nizzuto stops. He doesn’t move a muscle. Andrea’s not sure he’s even breathing. </p><p> </p><p>He adds the coup de grâce. </p><p> </p><p>“I don’t want to send an innocent man to prison”. </p><p> </p><p>And then the miracle happens— Nizzuto sits down again. </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>…Gentile could also have left his fingerprints on Romano’s body while trying to stop the bleeding, according to a source familiar with the investigation. The Carabinieri have opened an internal inquiry to see if Siluro’s accountant was extorted into confession to protect the mayor’s son, who has since then taken his place as the main suspect in the case...</p>
<hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p>Primo has been thinking about what to say for a week, but now that he has Leonardo in front of him, safe and sound, in his house at the outskirts of town, he’s reduced to an extremely irated: “You’re a hero. Congratulations”. </p><p> </p><p>Leonardo looks up from the newspaper page he hasn’t possibly finished reading, the one Primo has thrown at him the moment they’ve gotten inside, directly from the Courthouse (Primo white knuckling the steering wheel of the Alfetta all the way through). Leonardo keeps looking, and looking, and Primo’s got no idea what he’s seeing in his face but mounting rage. He finally points out, slowly: “I didn’t say a thing”.</p><p> </p><p>Primo breathes in, breathes out. <em> At least they’re not tip toeing around this one </em>.  </p><p> </p><p>“You should have”, he snaps. Primo would have understood. <em> He would have </em>. Leonardo— He’d had big reasons to cut a deal with the Police. Primo wouldn’t even have resented him if he had done so. Leonardo has been very loyal up until this moment, Primo wouldn’t have— “I didn’t ask you to defend me”. </p><p> </p><p>Leonardo scoffs. </p><p> </p><p>“I didn’t know it was something I had to ask your permission for”. </p><p> </p><p>Primo’s got Regina’s expression seared on his memory, from the night he showed up on their doorstep, all alone, telling her to pick up her things and wake up Francesco, because they needed to get out of town and they needed to do it <em> now </em>, before the news broke— </p><p> </p><p>Primo points aggressively to the newspaper page in Leonardo’s hand.  </p><p> </p><p>“Look at the mess this whole <em> not asking for my permission </em> has gotten us both!” </p><p> </p><p>Leonardo looks up the ceiling, as if asking for strength, which is absolutely, <em> fucking </em> rich. </p><p> </p><p>“So you think I should have just, what? Sold you out?”</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Obviously.  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>The mere thought of saying it outloud makes Primo feel as if he’s swallowing crystal shreds. He settles for the next best thing he can think of: “I’d have figured out how to get out of the investigation on my own just as fine!”</p><p> </p><p>“On your own”, Leonardo repeats. “Do you need me to remind you how we got into this situation in the first place?”</p><p> </p><p>Primo opens his mouth, closes it. There’s no need for that. It’s not as if he has been able to forget that if he <em> had listened </em>, they wouldn’t have gotten into such a mess. It’s not as if the thought hasn’t found refuge in his brain, playing again, and again, like a broken record. </p><p> </p><p>He recoils when Leonardo tries to put a hand on his shoulder, but Leonardo insists, crowding him against the sofa’s back. </p><p> </p><p>“I want you to listen to me, and I want you to listen very carefully”. </p><p> </p><p>Primo tries to get out of Leonardo’s grip with desperated annoyance, grunts a: “Fuck you”. </p><p> </p><p>“I did it, I’ve done it, and I’ll do it again in a heartbeat, so you better get inside that thick skull of yours how much I—”.</p><p> </p><p>“Shut up! God, just—<em> shut up! </em>”  </p><p> </p><p>Primo feels his heart on his throat. His ears are ringing. His vision is clouded and he can feel his eyes stinging. He refuses to lose it about this, forces the possibility out of existence out of sheer willpower as he desperately tries to keep it together as everything— the murder, Leonardo’s arrest, his deal to keep Primo out of the law’s way, comes crashing over him.  </p><p> </p><p>Leonardo fixing his hands to turn his grabbing into holding makes him realise that he’s trembling all over.  </p><p> </p><p>He forces himself to breath, big, ample breaths, and he— </p><p> </p><p>He kisses Leonardo.  </p><p> </p><p>He does it on impulse, because he’s a breath away, because he’s been counting the days since the last time he did it and because if Leonardo dares to open his mouth again, Primo’s not quite sure what he’s going to do. </p><p> </p><p>It’s easier to breathe when he can’t, with Leonardo’s hands coming up to cup his neck from the back, forcing him to slow down as Leonardo deepens the kiss. </p><p> </p><p>Leonardo— he chose to protect Primo. </p><p> </p><p>Among every other possibility. At great cost for himself. </p><p> </p><p>He chose Primo. </p><p> </p><p>Primo doesn’t have an inkling about what to do with that information. He had accepted from the very start that he’d end up becoming <em> too much </em> to deal with on the long run, had made his peace with the eventual, inevitable moment in which Leonardo would realize that he’s just <em> not worth it </em> and yet—  </p><p> </p><p>He lets his hands roam Leonardo’s back, clings to his shoulders, tries to fit himself against his body until he starts feeling more like a person. He thinks about kissing down a line on Leonardo’s neck, and becomes so mad at himself when he cannot calm his hands down enough to undo his tie, especially when it makes Leonardo grab them, this time loosely, and stop them both. </p><p> </p><p>He chases after Leonardo’s lips when he parts them, warns: “<em> Don’t you dare </em>”, with a voice that would sound more commanding if it wasn’t so aching. Leonardo takes a long, hard look at him. Primo tries not to think about whatever must be showing in his face, intends to let Leonardo’s little laugh, the placating, fond “Okay, okay”, wash over him like a balm when Leonardo tugs at him, slightly, and directs them both to the bedroom. </p><p> </p><p>Clothes fall in a trickle through the corridor without a care. Primo feels how his stomach leaps as if he were falling as they enter the room, his descent into desperation from the past weeks patently clear in the couple of bottles still on the floor, by the bed, in the little white powdered case on the desk. He pushes Leonardo gently so he sits on the mattress, a rush of power that electrifies his veins when he sits on his lap, getting Leonardo open mouthed when he takes him  in hand, those little sighs that he makes when he strokes him slowly, twisting his hand in the way that he knows Leonardo likes. </p><p> </p><p><em> That’ll show him </em> , he thinks, nonsensically, shock over the fact that <em> Leonardo chose him </em>giving way to the usual giddiness he feels when he provokes him into action, when he gets Leonardo to flip them over and Primo finds himself with his back on the bed, legs bracketing his hips, feeling the hot wave of Leonardo’s gaze over his body, after he grabs the lube from its usual place in the bedside table, but before he starts fingering him. As if he’s the only thing that matters— </p><p> </p><p>“God, I’ve missed this”, Leonardo mutters, Primo feeling goosebumps from where he sets a strand from his hair aside from his face, his heart out of synch in his chest. “I’ve missed you”. </p><p> </p><p>Primo cannot bite out the soft whine that escapes his lips, can’t not roll his hips up when Leonardo shoves a pillow below them, when he starts fucking him first with his fingers and then with his cock, can’t barely remember how one is supposed to breathe when Leonardo manhandles him into position, a leg over his shoulder that ends up like at the start, bracketing Leonardo’s hips, as their rhythm turns progressively erratic.   </p><p> </p><p>Leonardo chose him<em> — </em> Primo keeps urging Leonardo on even after he comes with that thought blaring at the back of his mind, hands roaming his back, what he can grab of his ass, everything a shade or two of too much, and not even close to enough. He chose him, <em> he loves him— </em> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>He could spend the night there once they collapse on the mattress, melted against the couch, Leonardo a solid weight on top of him. But this, Leonardo doing idly patterns on his thigh, lying on his bed as Primo smokes, this is also nice. Nicer than most things he has realistically imagined having.  </p><p> </p><p>“...I was prepared to burn the Courthouse to the ground, if that’s what it took”, Primo confesses, in a mutter, takes a moment to realize that he has actually said it outloud. </p><p> </p><p>Primo feels again the leap in his stomach when the hand on his thigh stutters, as Leonardo turns to look at him. He takes a long drag from the cigarette, lets the smoke burn his throat, and doesn’t dare to move a muscle.  </p><p> </p><p>“You thought that I had sold you out”. </p><p> </p><p>The thought is still there, poking with dull edges against Primo’s chest. At least he has dislodged it from his throat, and can breath around it. He bites the inside of his cheek, gives a little shrug, and is only moderately surprised when Leonardo steals his cigarette, a daring grin on his lips Primo longs to kiss. </p><p> </p><p>He could have put the whole country to the ground, see the world burn just for the possibility that Leonardo might smile again on him like that.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Legal terms are not my forte even in my native language, so, very sorry for any potential mistakes. </p><p>It's not necessary to understand this story, but if you want to add another layer to it, I've also written about Primo and Leonardo and their shady dealings with Mattia Mazza, the mayor's son, in <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27867353">this story</a>.</p><p><a href="https://giurochedadomani.tumblr.com/">This is my tumblr</a>, come say hi!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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